The voter registration process for Wolesi Jirga election began right in April 2018. Despite serious security threats and other challenges, tens of thousands of Afghans who were fed up with the performance of the majority of Wolesi Jirga members turned out to fulfill their national responsibility by registering their names in order to become eligible to vote and elect candidates for the house of people which can truly represent them.
Although the Independent Election Commission (IEC) decided to use biometric technology to ensure transparency, the election was riddled with unprecedented irregularities and fraud. Temporary election employees even in capital Kabul did not know how to use the biometric devices. IEC failed in election management to an extent that even it could not dispatch election materials to all polling centers in Kabul until the start of the voting process on election day. The failure of electoral institutions in spite of a three-year delay in the election under the pretext of electoral reforms plunged the country into a new election crisis. The parliamentary election was held on October 20, 2018, but its final results have not yet been announced almost seven months later.
The government leadership neither extended the term of previous lawmakers nor inaugurated the newly elected Wolesi Jirga members, thereby creating a huge vacuum of a core pillar of the state. Though State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr. Ghulam Farooq Wardak on Sunday said at a press conference in Kabul that the new members of Wolesi Jirga would be inaugurated by the end of the current week, the final results of Kabul as the country’s biggest constituency are yet to be announced.
Such a long delay in the announcement of election results may be unheard of in the history of election in the world. To tackle the current embarrassment and limbo, government leaders must press electoral commissions to declare the results of the remaining provinces, and inaugurate the parliament. The nation has the right to have representatives to oversee the activities of the government, especially one such as the National Unity Government that not only has betrayed all of its electoral promises but also acted against them on many occasions.
